Weekend Preview: Into Darkness

For the second time this month only one new film is being released nationwide for the weekend, because nobody is dumb enough to try to compete with the sequel to J.J. Abrams' wildly successful 2009 Star Trek reboot.

Star Trek Into Darkness beams into around 3,800 theaters, starting with tonight's limited engagement Fan Sneaks, and will have no trouble becoming the box office's flagship for the weekend. Three years ago Chris Pine led the crew of the Enterprise to the franchise's highest grossing opening weekend by earning $75 million domestically. Three years of anticipation and the intrigue surrounding Benidict Cumberbatch's villain should help propel Into Darkness above $100 million for its five day opening (Wednesday through Sunday), though the fanboy in me wants to make a prediction closer to $150 million for that time frame. Either way, I don't think the sequel should have any trouble reaching its predecessor's $257 million final domestic gross, and it may even end up closer to $300 million.

As for the old releases, Iron Man 3 should earn around $35 million this weekend if it continues to hold similarly to Iron Man 2. This would bring the domestic gross of Stark's third outing to around $340 million, while its worldwide gross will probably already have surpassed $1 billion, making it the sixteenth film to ever reach that milestone. Gatsby should hold onto its audience better than Iron Man since not as many of them will be flocking to see Into Darkness, but with very mixed audience and critical responses it could see more than a fifty percent drop from last weekend. But even if it only makes $20 million this weekend, its total domestic gross should still be close to double Luhrmann's previously highest grossing film. And as for poor old Peeples, well people was definitely something it had a hard time attracting. With less than $5 million as of May 13, I doubt it will even be able to reach $2.5 million for its second weekend.

So is anybody else seeing Star Trek Into Darkness tonight? I'm seeing it at 11 PM in IMAX 3D, so I'm sure some related posts should pop up on my tumblr blog and on my twitter account.

Tune in next week for a proper Memorial Day battle between established franchise films Fast & Furious 6 and The Hangover Part 3, as well as Blue Sky's newest animated adventure Epic.